“I now perform a promise, which I some time since made to
your Royal Highness, and take the liberty of submitting to you the result of my
further thoughts on the means that yet remain to be adopted for terminating the
African slave trade. The ideas principally intended to be illustrated are, the
necessity of the immediate interference of this country to induce foreign
states to assent to its abolition, and the propriety and justice in case of
refusal, of capturing all such vessels, of whatever country, as may be found
engaged in the trade. Your Royal Highness will, perhaps, recollect that this
idea was first started in a conversation which I had the honour to have with
you at High Legh, and it seemed to me at that time to be a consequence of some
observations which your Royal Highness had made on the subject. I afterwards
reconsidered an assertion, which, I

476

LIFE OF WILLIAM ROSCOE.

feared, had been too
hastily made, but which further deliberation confirmed; and I have now the
satisfaction to know, that on the principal point of the abstract right of this
country to prevent other nations from carrying on the trade, your Royal
Highness entirely coincides.

“The question of the expediency of such an interference,
under present circumstances, as it involves the deepest considerations of
national interest, is of more difficult solution, and on this account I
postponed, in my last communication to your Royal Highness, entering upon its
consideration, under an apprehension that a hasty and imperfect defence of it
might rather injure than promote a cause on which so much depends. Since that
time, I have deliberately reconsidered my former statement, and compared it
with the opinions of the principal writers on general law, and the pages I now
transmit to your Royal Highness are the result of this consideration. I cannot
but be sensible, that the proposing any measures which may possibly tend to
increase the causes of hostility between nations, unless such measures be
indispensably necessary, is highly culpable, and I should consider myself as
acting in contradiction to every principle and feeling of my life, if I were to
place myself in such a predicament. But, greatly as I deprecate it, and
thoroughly convinced as I am that war is often resorted to

LIFE OF WILLIAM ROSCOE.

477

upon insufficient and even criminal grounds, I cannot admit that the dearest
and most indisputable privileges of the human race are to be abandoned to the
caprice, the tyranny, or the avarice of those, who, in the plenitude of their
power, may think proper to trample upon them. War, when engaged in for the
defence of liberty, the vindication of justice, or the succour of the
oppressed, is not only allowable, but when it can be waged with a reasonable
prospect of success, is indispensable; and if it were not for this eternal and
unshaken resistance of right to wrong, this rising up of justice, to crush and
put down oppression, the interests of the human race would be surrendered, and
their destinies decided upon by the most cruel, the most odious, and the most
profligate of their kind.”

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INFORMATION FROM TEI HEADER

Source Description:

Author: Henry Roscoe

Title:The Life of William Roscoe 2 vols (London: T. Cadell, 1833).

Electronic Edition:

Series: Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org

Encoding Description: Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed. Obvious and unambiguous compositors’ errors have been silently corrected.

Markup and editing by: David Hill Radcliffe

Completed May 2012

Publication Statement:

Publisher: Center for Applied Technologies in the Humanities, Virginia Tech